“Fog’s rolling in heavy tonight.”
Amanda peered out through the darkness, lit only by a single beam across the water. She turned to the old lighthouse keeper. “Do you think the ships will be safe?”
“Depends,” he answered. “None will try to make harbor tonight, but if it’s still soup in the morning, some may hazard coming through anyway.” He half-turned to face her. “Those stacks out there aren’t forgiving.”
“But the foghorn…”
“That’s to warn them off. Them as heed the horn should steer clear. They’ll be fine, like as not. Them as don’t?”
“Mandy?” Jock’s voice called up from the bottom of the lighthouse stairs.
Shaken from her daydream, Amanda hollered down to her husband. “Coming, Jock.” The vision faded into a clear blue sky, seagulls calling to one another as they circled waves crashing against sea stacks, a term she had only just learned from the tour guide.
Sometimes she wished Jock could see the past as she did, with all the color and vibrancy. Today was one of those days. He wouldn’t understand her trip into the past. Amanda would have to wait until she got home to call Leslie, her writer friend. Leslie would get it.
Laura prompts are always fun because she usually tells me a story of an adventure she had. I take the bones and create something new. Sometimes that new story has very little to do with the original, but always owes its inspiration to a seed planted in my mind.
I’m also including a Wikepedia post about stacks.
A stack or sea stack is a geological landform consisting of a steep and often vertical column or columns of rock in the sea near a coast, formed by wave erosion.[1] Stacks are formed over time by wind and water, processes of coastal geomorphology.[2] They are formed when part of a headland is eroded by hydraulic action, which is the force of the sea or water crashing against the rock. The force of the water weakens cracks in the headland, causing them to later collapse, forming free-standing stacks and even a small island.
Taken from Wikepedia
If you’re looking for more fiction to read on Substack, check out Innocently Macabre by Ajinkya Goyal. Here’s his description of the publication:
Innocently Macabre presents an interplay of worldly merriment and twisted secrets, distilling the horrors and wonders of the cosmos for your kind perusal. Take a look. Have your pick. Enjoy.
I was confused for a second there, but when realisation hit, I loved it!
I knew you would get it. I knew you would feel it, the past there hidden beneath the layers of dust and behind the broken windows. It was right there waiting for us to discover, to imagine them back into the wind and waves. Yes 💕